


to eren, 2000 years too late

by lohedrkn



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Age Difference, Angst, Canon Compliant, Heartache, Implied Murder, Implied Reincarnation, Levi (Shingeki no Kyojin) Has Feelings, Love Letters, M/M, Pain, Post-Canon, has humanity won???, i guess, i listened to akatsuki no requiem a billion times over, implications of one possible ending, isayama u better deliver, ooc bc when has levi ever been so poetic, who knows - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-17
Updated: 2019-02-17
Packaged: 2019-10-30 11:13:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,114
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17827520
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lohedrkn/pseuds/lohedrkn
Summary: a love letter of sorts.





	to eren, 2000 years too late

**Author's Note:**

> i've been listening to akatsuki no requiem for seven hours n my chest hurts. im sorry for all the errors n inconsistencies, it's unbetad n very much just rambling. felt the need to write this for the sake of nostalgia.

to eren,

in retrospect, this letter is pointless. but then again, in retrospect, everything’s pointless, everything we’ve ever fought for. how ironic. also i am not any good with words, jaeger, so i apologize in advance. i’m sorry.

you’re probably already wondering why i’m avoiding the subject of this letter. i also apologize for that. the thing is, there just isn’t one? this is just rambling. a love letter of sorts, one might say. you can read it or not read it, it’s up to you. it’s okay if you don’t. ~~(i hope you read it)~~. it isn’t as if what i have to say is unimportant – it’s important to me. ~~it’s so so important~~. and i want to finally say it. after all this time i guess i’m finally ready to admit it to ~~myself~~ you.

remember when we first met, jaeger? you were an annoying crybaby of a brat. you crashed into my squad and to be completely honest, i was appalled by you in the beginning. you were so clueless, so full of rage, so naïve. impossible to put up with. so hot-blooded, always ready to head into battle without much thought. you drove me mad. god, jaeger, you always reminded me of the reckless street brats i used to hate in my adolescence.

people said you were the last hope of humanity. and i despised the fact that i could see that. i mean, i obviously thought we could do without you, but i did manage to grasp the potential in you to become a valuable asset to humanity in the fight against titans.

you were such an annoying piece of shit. i despised you. but then i guess you grew on me. over time.

i remember fighting with you side by side, i remember pulling you out of your titan form, i remember being legitimately scared for your life. i think that’s where it begun for me. i remember beating the shit out of you. in all honesty, i can’t say i didn’t enjoy myself. i’m not sorry for hurting you that day.

i remember seeing your tears and desperation in your eyes. i remember the day you finally started making your own choices. i remember seeing death and thinking to myself “i hope jaeger never has to witness that”. i remember seeing you grow up. i’m sorry i couldn’t protect you from life itself.

honestly, i didn’t think this letter would turn out to be just me apologizing for the shit i never did, or the shit i fucking failed to do. this was supposed to be a heartfelt love letter, written in shame of unsaid words and shed blood in pointless battles. i hope one day you find it in yourself to forgive me.

on some occasions, the rare peaceful moments, i heard you mentioning the ocean, the outside world where you would live quietly when the war ended. you never asked me to bring you there, to make that kind of a life for you. yet, if there’s something i regret, it’s not being capable of providing that for you. maybe i could’ve ended the war and saved you from the monstrous fate you met. i know it’s a ridiculous, impossible thought but that doesn’t stop my mind from wondering.

~~i lov~~ i miss you, jaeger. and i know there’s not a slightest chance for you to read this letter, ever, yet i still hope in the name of all the saints that one day, you will. in another life, maybe, 2000 years from now. in a life where you don’t have to suffer, in a life where you don’t have to fight for survival, in a life where you aren’t born just to die for the rest of us. i hope it’ll be in a life where the sun rises again, painting the world in golden hues, and you will be glad to be alive. i hope i will be there, too.

it makes me feel kind of nostalgic, you know. it’s bittersweet and painful, thinking about the lives we could’ve led, born into a different universe, or even making a few different decisions along the way. maybe it would’ve been better if we never met at all. fuck, who am i kidding, obviously it would’ve been better if we never met at all. coulda saved us both from a shit load of pain.

but we met anyway. and on the nights when i’m all alone, everything falling apart in my hands, i cannot bring myself to regret any of this. which is weird because nothing actually ever happened between us but… loving you, i guess. i don’t regret loving you. goddamn, jaeger, you have no idea. fuck. this is so wrong. i love you.

when i looked at you, even in the end, i couldn’t see the monster you had become. you were eren, my eren, worthy of so much more than life ever offered you. you have never been a monster to me, jaeger. even when you wanted to viciously wipe out all of humanity, destroy everything we’d been fighting for. everything i’d been fighting for all these years.

you see, kid, i’m old. i’ve got 15 years on you (and forever will), i’ve loved and lost and broken over and over again but for some reason, your sorry ass owns my soul, forever will. i’ve lived for far longer than a man of my kind ever should have, and now i don’t even know if i want to see the renewal of the world. but i have to, heh? for you, and for everyone else who never get a chance to.

you were a monster, not inherently evil, or directly a villain, but a monster, jaeger. you grew up. i felt responsible (still do) for what you had become, so when they raised the question of killing you, i told them to leave it to me. i thought i was strong enough, i thought i could do that to you. i thought i was capable of killing you. for the record, i never wanted to be the one to end you. you deserved to live.

and standing there, face to face, i hesitated. i couldn’t bring myself to kill you. i couldn’t bring myself to hurt you. but in the end, all of that was pointless because i had to do what i’d always done. suck it up and slaughter yet another part of my own soul. i hate myself for it. i’m sorry. i love you, even in all my shame.

i’ll make sure your sacrifices weren’t in vain.

i’ll come to find you in the next life, i promise.

 

levi


End file.
